Jean-Baptiste VELUT (Université Paris Est Marne la Vallée) : « Inside and Outside the Beltway: Centralizing and Decentralizing Mobilization within the Citizen Trade Campaign Network ».
New information technologies have revolutionized the modus operandi of advocacy networks, allowing them to build new alliances at both national and international levels, while facilitating the participation of grassroots activists in a decision-making process that tends to be more decentralized. These organizational transformations are crucial for the sustainability of any political organization to the extent that the emergence of new participatory structures can not only expand the base of advocacy networks (recruitment, alliance-building) but also change its political orientation. In many regards, these internal and external changes can have a significant impact on a movement’s ability to reach its political objectives.
This paper seeks to analyze the costs and benefits of these organizational changes through the experience of the Citizens Trade Campaign. The development of this central actor in the US-based global justice movement from the beginning of the 1990s largely owes to the diffusion of new information technologies. How did this political alliance between unions, environmental and consumer advocates manage to deal with these internal and external mutations? What obstacles did it face to respond to the demands of grassroots activists for more decentralization while meeting its own needs to remain politically united? Did these organizational transformations increase the political clout of the fair trade coalition? This analysis will tackle these questions by relying on a series of interviews with political actors inside and outside Washington, and more specifically with representatives from member organizations of the Citizens Trade Campaign.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire